I've been to hell and back

[Amandine]

Against the wishes of her parents, my mother chose to enter convent school at the age of 14 with the vocation of becoming a Catholic nun. At 21 she left, finding it too difficult. Three years later she had the mischance to cross paths with my father, a psychiatric case as well as being alcholic and violent. His parents on several occasions called the mental asylum to have him taken away in a straight jacket to have electric shock treatment in his 20s. Over the years, he's been diagnosed variably as schizophrenic, psychotic, psychopath,... 

My mother told me she was afraid of him and thought it was the "will of God" to look after him as her life's mission. She confided in me that he'd blackmailed her into marrying him by threatening her with certain things (eg. breaking all the neighbours' windows, telling her parents she'd slept with him ("untrue"), etc.
As a child, I never had a day's peace in my family. I saw my dad physically assault, threaten and mistreat my mother, this mother I loved with such a powerful intense love. I would have died for her, I loved her that much. An example of such a scene would be my father holding a large chip pan of boiling hot oil over my mother's head threatening to throw it over her. 

The feeling of impotence was unbearable and very traumatic for me. As a child, I was enormously attached to my mother, I had a huge love for her. I felt an intense need to look after her, protect her from harm and keep her safe. When I evoke this love, I cannot help crying. For me, she was the epitome of everything that was pure, good, kind, generous, etc, she was like a God to me. I couldn't understand how ANYONE could ever want to hurt her! The name she gave me was the same name as her best friend in the convent, from the beginning we were so close. My dad hated me and my brother because we were close to her. I did everything in my power as a kid to lessen my mother's burden and bring her joy, I was the good kid, the perfect child, that did well at school, I spoke before my time, read before my time, walked before my time, I did everything I could to please her and make her happy. I felt her pain so deeply. If she suffered, I suffered. I remember often finding her crying in her corner because she didn't know what to do, my heart breaking each time. I could try my best to console and comfort her. Putting my arms around her, I would promise her "I'd look after her when I was bigger", that she "could come and live with me and my family". So, very early on, I adopted the role of "saviour", "perfect child". The love I had for her was so strong I can't even describe it. I was obviously developing an unhealthy co-dependent relationship with her.  

I  can't remember how old I started doing this, but at some point, as far as I can recall and certainly as soon as I was able to, I started putting myself in between my parents, pulling my father off her, when he was physically attacking her in order to protect her as best I could. And as soon as I intervened between them, the violence seemed to stop and the threats dissipate, if my memory serves me well, (at least for that night!). My 4 sisters and brother stopped crying, sobbing and screaming and my mother stopped hysterically yelling "call the police" and everyone went to bed for that night. Sometimes the police came, but my mother was too scared of my father to be able to talk to them. "No, no, I'm fine. Everything's okay". There was a social worker at the time, but she was too frightened of my father, and so nothing was done for our family. 

The days following these violent scenes, my mother always reproached me for having intervened between her and my father (which annoyed me to hear!) because she was "afraid of me getting hurt". I replied it was nothing, but she insisted I stop intervening between them. I obviously didn't obey, I wanted to protect her so much. As long as my father was attacking her, I'd be there to try and stop it. She didn't understand that for me the pain of passively watching the horror scenes unfold without doing anything was a thousand times worse than anything my father could do to me, and strangely enough, I wasn't afraid of him, even though he hated me. In any case, I loved my mother so much I would have sacrificed my life for her. And if my memories serve me well, I recall the violence stopping with my interventions, for those nights anyway, almost as though my father was relieved that there was somebody actually stepping in to stop it.

My father didn't work. He spent his days in bed, tyrannising the household, we walked on eggshells. We'd take him up his meals and he'd throw them on the wall, having seen a hair (imaginary or not) on the plate. He'd get up at the end of the day to go to the pub.

My mother had six children. She would probably have had tons more if the local priest (fortunately!) hadn't intervened and threatened to stop speaking to her unless she took some serious contraception. My mother has gone to mass almost every day since leaving the convent, even at 6 o'clock in the morning before starting work. The priest insisted that my mother took the pill. Without the intervention of the priest, I dread to think how many children she would have had ... 15 in 15 years ? 20 in 20 years ? 

The horror at home continued until the divorce of my parents (I was about 13 years old and hearing that news was one of the happiest days of my life). My mother finally accepted to divorce my father because the Catholic nuns at school threatened her (fortunately!!) with removing her 6 children unless she got a divorce. My eldest sister (fortunately!!) had been crying a bit at school, the nuns seemed privy to what was going on at home.

After the divorce, for the next few years of my adolescence there were highs and lows between my mother and I. I felt she was trying to control me and I began being repulsed by certain caracter and personality traits she had that started alienating me from her (her agressiveness (even violence towards me a few times), her way of gossipping and speaking negatively about others (including her own daughters), her hypocrisy, stubborness, insensitivity, irresponsibility, resentfulness, etc. I began losing my illusions about her, idealising and trusting her less. Finding my family toxic and the relationships dysfunctional. (I always found my sisters and brother very selfish), I was finding it more and more depressing being around them. There was never a day of peace in the household, even with my father gone. There were always fights and arguments between my sisters, my brother would hit his 2 younger sisters. 

My disturbed brother was violent, threatening and unstable, and was taking drugs. He often used to go into the bathroom with his 2 dogs for sexual activities for long stretches at a time, the horrific noises really traumatised me (especially as I love animals so much). One of the things that depress me most in this world is the cruelty towards defenceless animals. I was too terrified of my brother to risk spying through the key hole, he was an angry, pyschopathic individual. (He had already kicked me hard from behind, badly hurting my private parts, picked up and threw his alsation on top of me and put a huge rifle to my head for absolutely nothing, I had been studying for my A'levels quietly on my bed). From the dogs' yelps and prolonged thudding noises against the bath, he seemed to be "getting off" by forcing the male alsatian to copulate with the (much, much smaller) little Jack Russel female. I stayed well clear of this nutcase of a brother, choosing exclusively to humour him in order to remain unharmed by him, but I checked the dogs discretely after their "bathroom episodes" to confirm my worst suspicions and invariably noticed the little female  had blood around her vagina. Afraid of him and his anger, violence and moods, I was too terrified to go to the police to report these incidents with the dogs, and when I spoke about it to my mother she didn't reply as though I hadn't spoken. I think she was too afraid of him too. These incidents have remained traumatic memories in my life.

I left the family home in Edinburgh at 18 years old to go and pursue my college education in another town far away, and after graduating at 22, decided to leave the country altogether and go and live and work abroad in Europe. Six years later I met my lovely husband. I'm 53 years old now, we've been together for 24 years, still as much in love and happy together, we have an enormous respect for each other and love each other deeply. I feel blessed having him in my life. 

During my adult years, I often visited my mother but I realised there was less and less of a real relationship between us. Each visit gave me fewer reasons to trust her. I don't think she was making much effort with me now, perhaps because I'd moved so far away, she was probably disappointed with me. A few times, I'd eavesdrop accidently on her telephone conversations with my eldest sister, she'd be running me down, even lying and exaggerating things. I was her guest for the weekend, and yet here she was badmouthing me off to my sibling. I couldn't believe my ears, I never said anything to her, just vowed silently to myself to visit her less and less. I remember thinking (positively) at the time that her doing that would just facilitate me cutting the umbilical cord with her (co-dependent relationship). This treachery of hers was the proof I needed to help me cut myself free from her with less guilt. When my sister didn't want anything to do with me, at least now I understood why! I actually asked her one day why I hadn't been invited to her wedding, she replied "because mammy said you did this, or did that", as if my mother had been taking a perverse pleasure in coquering and dividing us. 

Over the decades, I've also found my sisters' lives more and more depressing, with their husbands invariably alcoholic, unstable, unfaithful, disloyal, unreliable, violent.

******************************************************

My brother has spent most of his life in and out of prison and addicted to heroin. At one time, when he was in prison my mother moved house which relieved me enormously because it meant my brother wouldn't know of her whereabouts and therefore couldn't bother her any more for money for his heroin. That was the first time she was really free of him. It lasted about 5 or 6 years.  

One day in 2009, the Probation Officer rang my mother to say that he was leaving prison but had nowhere to go. So my mother accepted him moving in with her. She said the officer knew how to pull on her heart strings. If she refused, her son would be in the streets. She had an anonymous adress that my brother didn't know about, safe from him for the first time in her life, and here he was now moving in with her. I think the shock was too much for her.  

A few days after he'd moved in, my mother had a massive stroke (she nearly died) which put her in hospital for the next 6 months. She lost everything, she was like a vegetable, she could no longer move, speak, focus, understand, etc The nurse told me the stress of my brother moving in probably triggered the stroke. As an aftermath she is now handicapped, only the left side of her body functions. She can no longer do so many things she loved to do, driving, knitting, etc, let alone the more basic day to day tasks. When she was in hospital, pressure was put on my brother to vacate her premises. Sooner or later, he found himself back in prison. The next decade of his life continues along the same theme, in and out of prison and heroin.

In January 2018, leaving prison, my brother asked a pal to do the same thing as the Probation Officer had done in the past, namely call my mother and pull on her heartstrings, lamenting the fact that my brother had no bed to go to. My mother fell for it and acquiesced and before we know it, he's back living with her.

Since then he's taking her for everything she's got in order to get his heroin. My mother's now 80, 10 years older than the last time, and is too tired to resist. Judging from her symptoms,  I also believe she has Frontotemporal dementia, but nobody is interested in getting her a diagnosis. She's lost the battle with my brother, and is being exploited and abused by him, all the while turning a blind eye, at the cost of falling out with most of her daughters for months on end. I wonder if perversely she is happy he is there to "look after her until she dies", that she won't be alone for the remaining years left to her. She is probably also feeling guilty that it's her "fault he's on drugs, she didn't protect him enough as a kid". 

He lies to her all the time, says he needs 30 pounds for something, she believes him each time, gives him her credit card, he takes 300 pounds out of the cash machine, then waits till midnight to take another 300 out. He probably tells he "he'll look after her, do her meals, etc". He steals her cheques and her possessions, pawning stuff like her precious tv (invalid that's all she's got in her life), he doesn't give a damn about her. He goes off in taxis just to go to the cash machine or to his dealer. In the space of a few months, he'd already spent 1,700 pounds from her account, probably giving heroin to his mates too, judging by the amount he's spending. He shoots up any old place in her bungalow, even blocking my mother's access to her fridge during the heatwave, so my sister had to nip out and get my mother a cold drink from the local shop.

My mother's incontinent and her house now smells badly of urine, I don't think she always has access to her bathroom, my brother being comatose behind the door. He plays music really loud at 3 o'clock in the morning, he invites his criminal friends around. I worry enormously about the health and safety of my mother. She is totally isolated, nobody in the family visits her any more, they're all too afraid of him. He's very threatening and intimidating, my nieces have seen him "out of it" with strange grimaces and they're too freaked out to go back to see my mum. He's completely isolated my mother, he hides her phone, and hangs up when anyone calls her. As well as Class A drugs, he's also smoking and drinking, my mother doesn't have insurance on her house. What if there's a fire? The insurance companies refuse to insure my mother's house because there's a known felon registered at her address. All that is horrific to me, I live far away and feel so impotent to do anything. It's the last thing I would have wished for my mother in the last years of her life.    

I've said little to my sisters but I'm shocked and disappointed with them. I honestly think they could have done a lot more for my mother and feel they've just abandoned her. They live really close by and yet have not really bothered with her. Since her stroke, she is handicapped, she has lost all her abilities on her right-hand side, she moves around with enormous difficulty, in a wheel chair and has a load of other problems due to her obesity. I really think my sisters are selfish not according her any of their time. They hardly visit her, or bring her meals as they should. This is a mother who would have given her last penny to help someone less fortunate than herself. At one point, I was even offering one of my sisters material objects and books in exchange for her cooking for my mother, negotiating all this at a distance, from another country.

I sincerely believe that the reason my brother was able to enter into the situation so easily was because there was a void created for him, a vacuum to step into, because my mother didn't really have anyone else properly looking after her. He quickly sussed that he just need to adopt the role of "carer" and she'd be putty in his hands. The irony is that he can't even take care of himself, let alone his mother. He's even filled in papers to send off to the powers that be, registering himself as her official primary caretaker so that he can get paid by the state for "looking after her".

Last September (2018), seeing as my sisters weren't doing anything for my mother, I decided to do my best to help. First at at distance. I contacted EVERYBODY for help : probation, associations against exploitation of elderly people, social services, the police, the doctor, her church, everyone, I don't do things by half, I telephoned left, right and centre, I wrote pages after pages detailing everything, and sending my reports by email to all concerned, but nobody could help or intervene as long as my mother kept telling them that "everything was fine". She insisted that she was alright (just like she did in the past with my father), and that her son was "a good boy" and not doing anything wrong, that he was "looking after her", but in reality she  was turning a blind eye to everything he was doing and to the state of her (diminishing) bank account, etc., she was in total denial. 

At one point I even suspected my brother of drugging my mother too (her head seemed so much in the sand and she seemed quite strange on the phone) but it couldn't be proven. I seriously think now that she has just decided to help him financially in her last remaining years, perhaps by guilt, or maybe because she thinks it's "God's will", perhaps she's afraid of having another stroke alone, or of dying alone? or is she just exhausted? Maybe there's be too much brainwashing, manipulation ("If you don't give me the money, I'll just have to mug an old lady in the street", "mum, you can't imagine my life in prison, I don't feel safe there", etc.) Or maybe she thinks she'll get a place in heaven?   

Last September, every service agency, institution I contacted gave me the same reply : "your mother doesn't want our help, she's happy with her son living there with her, she accepts giving him money, and it's her choice, she's "mentally autonomous" and hasn't any cognitive problems. We must respect her choice, she's free to do as she likes."

The whole situation disturbed me greatly. I talked on the phone to a policeman on the case who said the situation didn't sit at all easy with him either. 2018 is his probabtion year and yet here he is manipulating, exploiting and stealing from this own mother. He gave me some advice, and told me if it was HIS mother, he would 1. try and get the brother back in prison (so the mother would no longer be isolated and the family could visit her again in order to work out a plan of action to help her out of this quagmire), then 2. get her a mental assessment (which would show she was not able to act in her own best interests and could therefore access available community help and support), and then 3. find her an alternative living accomodation (where the son would get limited access under surveillance). 

 

I was getting reports from my niece who visited her, who saw my brother completely out of it behind the front door (which freaked her out so much she isn't going to check in on my mum anymore), and my mum rocking back and forth in the living room in her armchair (as though to comfort herself?). I decided to take a week off and travel over there, I was on a mission with the policeman's 3 step-plan as a guideline of action, to see if I could talk to her in person. I only bought a one-way ticket to Scotland, planning on returning to my life, and getting the return ticket back, when my mission was done. I arranged to stay at one of my sister's for the duration of my stay. However, I quickly became a "persona non grata" for my mum because she evidently didn't want to hear what I had to say. 

I explained to her that my eldest sister was so depressed with it all that she was seriously thinking of committing suicide, she was talking of driving her car off the motorway. My mother was like a cold stone, she seemed strangely insensitive to what I was saying, as if I hadn't spoken. The only thing she came out with was to say that it was terrible the day before, the police had come (the same policeman incidently that I had talked to) and tried to tackle her son, to provoke him into hitting them back so they could properly arrest him. (My brother now in his 50s is not stupid, and was able to hold off from retaliating with the police so as to avoid arrest). I told my mother it was I that had contacted the police to make a visit because I was worried about her.

Needless to say, my mother would no longer look at me, or speak to me. I learnt afterwards that she had repeated to my brother that it was I who had summoned the police, he phoned me and left me threatening messages. I no longer felt safe at my mum's (she told me herself I wasn't safe "after all the trouble you're causing") and that my brother could come home any minute. I didn't want to imagine what he was capable of, me on a mission to "save my mum" from his clutches and separate them, I was obviously his biggest threat to any heroin source.    

I told my mum she'd been a good mother, she'd done everything she could for him, she now had to "let him go". "Why does she think she deserves this kind of abuse?" She started sobbling, I told her repeatedly she had to "let it all out", that she'd been bottling this pain up for too long. 

While I was over there, my plan was to organise an "intervention" with all the family (meeting up elsewhere than at my mum's because he was always there, lurking around, controlling). There would be us 5 daughters, my aunt, and a few nieces, together we could pour our hearts out to try and make her see sense. Unfortunately, I didn't have the support of my sisters, on the contrary, they sabotaged what I was trying to do to save my mum from the situation. The only way I can describe it, is to say it was as though they were all living in La-La land, with their heads in the sand.

 
Everytime I called my mum, she put the phone down on me. If my brother answered, he would curse and swear at me, threatening me if I called again. Once I heard him grappling the phone from my mum and hurting her in the process, she cried out in pain. I couldn't go round and see her anymore because of my brother's threats, I think pushed to anger he'd have been capable of knifing me, if it wasn't the fear of going back to prison which would stop him. I was enemy number 1 for him.

After a week, I had exhausted all my options to help my mum. She didn't seem to care about me or my legitimate feelings of concern for her, she just accused me of rocking the boat, of being a trouble maker, of causing problems, of being "nasty", I had become the scape-goat. I decided to catch the first flight back home and cut all ties with everyone, my mum, my sisters, for my mental health sake. The situation was too crazy for me. I found myself once again in the horrific situation I had as a child : complete impotence. I was outraged at what was happening, I still am, but I cannot accept just accepting passively the mistreatment of somebody I love without being able to do anything about it, and for this very person to refuse my help. 

It's been a year now since I've cut those ties officially, for good, once and for all, with the whole of my family. I have to protect myself, the situation was dragging me back to the trauma and impotence of my childhood, the folly and abnormality of it all. It's no good just getting news from my sisters updating me on a situation which would no doubt progressively be getting worse and worse. I feel a bit disgusted at the lack of support from my sisters in 2018 at my moment of need (I had made a lot of sacrifices and put my whole life on hold to go over and help them) and for their passivity and lack of compassion for my mother.

 

If I can't do anything for her, it would be too disturbing for me to just passively receive bad (and worsening) news, I don't know what to do with this suffering, this impotence. I think about my mother everyday , she is so often in my dreams, I have nightmares too about the both of them, where my mum is in danger. I have just recently discovered Leo's videos and through them I often try to make sense of what I'm going through. For example, on the "self esteem" video how some people think they "deserve" that kind of abuse, etc

My heart feels completely broken, sometimes I cry so easily just thinking of her. I would never have wished the last years of my mother ending like this, she really doesn't deserve it. I feel like I just want my mum to die now, as peacefully as possible, but quicker rather than later. I will really feel relieved to learn that she's died. I just want her to be safe. I'd feel happier at the news of my brother dying from an overdose, except that my mother would be hurt by that, I wouldn't want her to get heartbroken over that. 

 

I feel so anxious at what could happen when she no longer has anything to give my brother. It drives me crazy seeing the dangerous situations she creates for herself, she seems to be so fatalistic. My only hope is that she is safe, the most basic thing in life, that's all I've ever wanted for her. Forget even about any happiness or peace for the moment, just basic personal safety, godammit. In spite of my huge tenderness for her, I can say today that I regret having this person as my mother, I feel like it's caused me too much suffering. 

Edited December 13, 2019 by Amandine

[Strangeloop]

It's hard to accept reality as it is....

What I see is you being afraid of losing your mother, well you will someday, it's inevitable it will happen at one point or another. Dettach yourself from your family. Take care if your own life, there's nothing you can do and the time is running out.

Look at the mother's point of view, maybe she likes being with your brother, maybe it's interesting for her. I bet it's way better for her to be with your brother than your father.

[ajasatya]

@Amandine Amazing words. I'd go for COMPLETE detachment if I were in your place. Simply because you have the right to have a happy Life. Your mother is seizing what she planted.

This is a rough aspect of the human experience: we're ALWAYS responsible for our lives, even when we're very little. We become more and more aware of our responsibility as we grow (or at least we should).

Your mother made many poor choices out of ignorance. Maybe affected by acts of ignorance from her parents? You see, the chain of ignorance is hard to break.

Your mother is special to you because she's your mother. But if you examine it further, she's just another human being who's been lacking wisdom... which is very very likely to happen in the human realm.

Again, I'd let it all go. Living a Life of wisdom and joy with your husband is the most sane option from now on. Be careful not to continue this karmic wave of suffering. Get out of the mud completely.

It is only hard because you believe that you're wrong by thinking that you can just let it all go. Inquire this internal, conditioned and toxic mental pattern of yours to death. There's absolutely no reason not to have a prosperous and fulfilled Life.

[Amandine]

@ajasatya Thank you, that was what I was wanting to hear. 

[IChoseTheRedPill]

@Amandine  What's interesting is that you managed to keep it together and discover real love... I'm very happy for You... Based on what You've shared, You deserve it... You were an amazing daughter in every sense of the word... It's time to let go for now and focus on You and Your life with those who love You... PeaCe2U Amandine...

[Amandine]

@IChoseTheRedPill Thank you for these comforting words.

 

[Average Investor]

It's good that you are leaving them in the past. There is usually not much you can do with stuff like that. Most people are not really looking for help unfortunately. You are seen as bad if you don't allow people to live in destructive environments. Your mental health and happiness are the most important things that you have. You don't want to be expending them on people who are not going to make any serious changes in their life. Misery loves company, so naturally people who are suffering want to drag everyone else down with them. There is a lot of reasons all of those people chose to continue their behavior. It's probably easier for the sisters not having to take care of your mom and well. The brother even though destructive is there doing something. If your mom had that much damage from a stoke and given her age is not likely to be able to process it easily either. 

The thing that sucks is it might feel like you are the only one who can help and save them. When in reality you can't do anything for them. Some have to go through the most suffering before they are really ready to receive help. For others it is probably too late. 

Have you done any therapy? 

[Ingit]

@Amandine ?? I can feel you... You are so strong......   nothing i can say much after reading it all...

[Amandine]

@Average Investor @Ingit  @Strange Loop Thank you all, it means a lot to me that you took the time to read all that, sorry it was so long!

I have gone to therapy and talked and cried a lot which was cathartic. 

One is always left with "survivor's guilt" though, like the proverbial captain abandoning ship.

I'm the sort of person who hates giving up on anything, I like to work on something till I've found a solution.

But in that situation, it was like banging my head against a brick wall.

So in the end I had to let go and let God.

However awesome and beautiful I make my own life from here on, I feel though that there will always be a bitter sweetness about it that I just have to learn to live with.

Edited January 21, 2020 by Amandine

[Lynnel]

It's more of a light read but I really liked Marie Cardinal's " Les mots pour le dire" at some point during my therapy. She had quite some mother issues and her story could give you some comfort

[Amandine]

On 22/01/2020 at 0:16 AM, Lynnel said:

It's more of a light read but I really liked Marie Cardinal's " Les mots pour le dire" at some point during my therapy. She had quite some mother issues and her story could give you some comfort

Thank you @Lynnel  I appreciate the book recommendation, merci. ?

I see it's available in my local library.  

Edited January 23, 2020 by Amandine